In U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,477 assigned to the present assignee and issued May 22, 2001 is disclosed a construction of lottery or game ticket which utilizes variable image printing techniques in combination with lamination of two substrate sheets together to form what is initially a common pouch construction with the game indicia on the inside surface where the sheets can be separated, each from the other, to form in effect two separate tickets.
The above patent and many similar patents and products available on the marketplace generally provide simply a lottery or game ticket printed on a suitable single substrate sheet or on laminated sheets where the tickets are intended to be used individually simply for playing of a game and are then discarded.
Many such tickets are used directly in a lottery situation so that the tickets have no other relevance other than the playing of the lottery or game by which the player may win monetary or other prizes as part of the lottery or gaming situation.
However more attention has been recently given to the use of such tickets as promotional items used by manufacturers of other products to enhance the sale of the product. It is common therefore for such products to include prize winning elements to encourage the purchase of the particular product. Thus bottled products sometimes include a prize winning element located within the cap. Thus boxed products such as cereal often include an additional insert card placed within the box which carries a game or other promotional material. In such situations, the card is merely an addition to the product and does not form part of the packaging itself.
There is however a desire to form such cards or tickets as part of a packaging material to provide the purchaser with the perception that the card or ticket is an integral part of the product and to provide the customer with the perception that there is an attempt to avoid wastage of materials.